


i would have held you, if you'd only let me

by phantasmagoria



Category: Glee
Genre: Amanda Palmer - Freeform, Angst, M/M, New York AU, The Bed Song, death of old age, kurtbastian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26438746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantasmagoria/pseuds/phantasmagoria
Summary: All the money in the worldWon’t buy a bedSo big and wideTo guarantee that you won’tAccidentally touch meIn the nightSnapshots of the long life of two men, very much in love, but very bad at telling each other that.(I promise it's not as sad as it sounds) (Okay maybe it is I'm really sorry)
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	i would have held you, if you'd only let me

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this for as long as I can remember and today I got so impatient I had to finish and post without a comprehensive edit, so forgive me. 
> 
> Listen before, during, after, I haven't decided which is best yet, but do one of them.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ijAqYkAhA0
> 
> All credit for the plot of course goes to AFP and the song.

**Exhibit A**

A graduation party was the last place Kurt wanted to be this evening, as it only served as a reminder of everything he was losing and had already lost. He sat in the basement of an unfamiliar McMansion, nursing a red solo cup as the other teenagers, forever an odd mix of his best friends and his biggest tormentors, chattered excitedly. The party was the graduated show choir class of 2012's attempt at burying the hatchet, hosted by a Warbler and extending the invitation to any competitor willing to move forward together, out of the Ohio bubble and into the real world, where their shared pasts could bond them together instead of turn them against each other.

The only problem was that Kurt wasn't moving on. His dreams squandered, he was staying in Ohio for the summer and beyond, and was perfectly happy to hold on to all his grudges, thank you very much.

He cringed as he watched Blaine and Jeff bounce around to 'Jump', shuddering at the memories it brought back. He was genuinely unsure why Blaine was even here, though he supposed he didn't technically rescind his plus one. He simply thought it would be implied after the break up only the day before, mere minutes before he walked onto stage in the awful polyester gown to accept his diploma.

Kurt stood up suddenly, unable to stand it anymore. As if he had been jinxed, he twirled around right into the personal space of one Sebastian Smythe, who cursed loudly as a tequila shot was knocked out of his hand.

“So much for a peace offering.” Sebastian muttered before downing the shot in his left hand smoothly while Kurt blinked dumbly. Sebastian looked back down at him for a fleeting moment before huffing out a sigh and turning away again.

“Wait! Don’t tell me you're a fan of the corny conceit of this party, Smythe.” Kurt found his voice. When Sebastian turned but didn’t reply, he continued “And only you would think a shot of tequila was a gift and not a punishment.”

“I was going to go get you another and try again, but now you’re definitely not getting anything.” Sebastian half laughed, and turned to walk away again. Kurt stared for a moment at the patch of carpet where the tequila shot he never would have accepted was slowly sinking in, and back at the makeshift stage in the corner of the room (“Might as well jump!”) and followed Sebastian in the direction of the stairs to the main house.

Kurt found him in the kitchen, mixing himself another drink with great concentration.

“I’m serious,” Kurt continued, shocking Sebastian out of thought, “Since when do you make peace offerings and move past old ills?”

Sebastian added a straw to his solo cup with a flourish. “Have you already forgotten all about my new leaf? I’ve been working so hard at being a good boy.”

Kurt wasn’t sure what his motivations were, maybe he was just glad to be out of earshot of the familiar voice downstairs, or maybe he was slightly charmed by the sight of Sebastian actually trying to be nice to him, but the smirk on the taller boys face and the glint in his eyes always looked like a challenge, and it was one Kurt couldn't help but rise to.  
“Prove it then,” he drawled, hopping up onto a bar stool, “Make me a peace offering that doesn’t burn and I'll consider buying into this ill conceived forgiveness party too.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Quite a challenge you’ve given me there Shirley.” He commented drily, even as his hands moved to grab a fresh cup from the bar.

It was hours later the boys wandered downstairs again, the drink-making morphing into hours of conversation about who knows what, a rotating cast of other choir members joining them to make drinks or discuss whatever more steadily ridiculous conversation topic their liquor fuelled brains supplied, but the two boys always ended up being left alone eventually. There were stretches of silence between them, filled with the topics they both knew they were actively avoiding: the past, and the future.

The one time the conversation ventured there, it had been Kurt’s fault. Somewhere around the 4th drink his tongue slipped.

“Pretty sure Blaine’s only here in the hopes you'd hit on him again, and you're wasting your whole night up here with me.” he mused, staring distractedly into his orange juice and mystery alcohol.

“Tonight isn’t about hooking up.” Sebastian said, sounding serious for a moment. “And you haven’t answered yet. Shark or bear?”

Once yawns had interrupted conversation too many times, the boys stumbled downstairs to claim a spot on a couch. To Kurt’s distinct disappointment, they found the mattresses already loaded with puppy piles of drunken kids, mostly fast asleep, some still giggling over what seems like nothing. A small collection of Warblers remained awake in the corner, fiddling with a tinny red ukulele.

Kurt watched them absently as Sebastian moved towards a cupboard which should have been loaded with blankets. Instead he found only one sleeping bag sitting lonely on the top shelf. Shrugging, Sebastian made short work of pulling it from it’s tight bag and walking back to the clear patch of floor where Kurt was standing. The Warblers started up a quiet, haunting lullaby as Kurt, suddenly self conscious, watched Sebastian lay the sleeping bag out flat, and wriggle in beneath it on the carpeted floor.

“We’re friends now aren’t we?” Kurt asked the boy who was rapidly losing consciousness next to him.  
“Sure.” Sebastian muttered, looking up at Kurt through barely open eyes.

Kurt just nodded and shrugged to himself, grabbing a cushion off the nearby couch and lying down before he could second guess it. Slotting himself under the rustling sleeping bag and settling onto the dirty pillow, he couldn't help but sing along to the Warblers tune softly,  
“Are you going to Scarborough Fair”

Behind him, suddenly close as he brought his head to the empty corner of the cushion, so quiet it might have been a dream, Sebastian might have sighed out,  
“Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” before his face fell limp, asleep all at once in this makeshift bed, his lips resting softly against the short hairs at the back of Kurt’s head, body suddenly pressed tightly along his back.

**Exhibit B**

Sebastian lay on the thick futon on the floor of the tiny loft, gazing at the messy head of sandy hair that lay beside him, lost in thought, in a way he often found himself on these golden early morning hours. Dust eddies swirled around in the light leaking through the patchy curtains.

The single room he shared with the boy who lay behind him was nothing of his glitzy New York dreams, Brunswick instead of Manhattan, water damaged wood floors instead of marble. Piles of expensive clothes sat on shelves made of milk crates and duct tape. The thumping he could head above him had faded into background noise he was so used to it. He thought absently about how his downstairs neighbours must have felt the same, only a few months ago. Now, he reached out to brush the bare shoulder a foot from him. Kurt flinched, and rolled onto his front, groaning in his sleep and pulling the blanket with him. Sebastian curled into himself, suddenly cold under only the sheet.

It was in early morning hours that Sebastian found his mind slipping back to the past few months. Summer in Ohio, he and Kurt starting a tentative friendship over coffee that very quickly exploded into more. Fiery insults, overnight (over one, long, sleepless, perfect, night), became heated kisses and even hotter sex. A passion that grew between them every day, and a fear that with the end of summer it would all come to an end. An almost Victorian affair, full of letters in the form of long texts written at 3 am, declaring utter devotion, asking ‘won’t you stay by my side forever?’. Running through the rain and kisses with hands running through wet hair. Sneaking out of and into bedroom windows. Whispered promises to be back in the morning, every morning. A desperate need for each other that they shared, though neither knew where it had come from.

And finally, the decision that Kurt would come to New York, an extension placed on their time together.

Sebastian had come out to his parents, finally broaching the conversation he had been putting off for years. In retrospect he could have delivered it as a softer blow than “this is my boyfriend who will be moving into the Manhattan condo you bought me next week” but maybe love had truly sent him crazy. No surprise really that the condo was swiftly whipped away, leaving Sebastian to spend his last week in Ohio staying with the Hudmels, frantically searching for a place to live and organising financial aid to start at NYU in a matter of days, as he watched the life he thought he would have, slip between his fingers.

To Sebastian’s surprise, Kurt kept his promises, the sweet nothings and grand plans made during pillow talk. The New York Dream he and Kurt had built became 2 jobs each, a damp smelling shoe-box and ramen noodles. They found the romance in it, their fire burning hotter than ever, love blooming in the adversity. Candlelit dinners of pizza slices and five dollar wine in the middle of the night, admissions of love over the phone during 'smoke breaks' they would sneak while waiting tables. They made enemies of their neighbours with absurdly loud sex and fights, in equal measure.

But sleepless nights stopped being practical. They fell asleep faster if they weren’t entangled.

Sebastian glanced at his phone, charging on the floor beside them. Finally late enough that he could justify getting up for class. He reached out a hand once more to the pale figure beside him,  
whispering “Kurt?” only to feel the small boy curl into himself. Sebastian pushed out of the small bed gently, sighing, and moved, practised and silent, to the other side of the small room.

**Exhibit C**

Kurt smiled to himself as he twirled around the bright living room, taking in the floor to ceiling windows. Sebastian brushed past him, with a laugh and a quick kiss pressed to his temple, a whisper ‘all ours’, before bouncing down the stairs to the lobby for the 20th time this morning. Finally their hard work paid off, Sebastian with a degree and a graduate position, and Kurt moving up the ladder at Vogue. Finally their dream was coming true.

Kurt breezed through the pristine kitchen, fingertips lingering on the pasta arm, the soft close drawers. He giddily waltzed through the hallway, already placing his art collection on the soft milky walls in his mind. He was rapt by the coat cupboard, the linen press, the skylight. His heart was soaring as he turned the corner into the master, when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

A brand new king bed was made up beautifully, hospital corners tucked tightly in, and dominating the space of the room. Kurt sunk into himself, heart beating hard in his chest, and arms coming up to wrap protectively around it, as if trying to contain the noise, or perhaps stop it bursting open entirely.

Never before had he seen such a cold sight. A bed so huge the two large pillows didn't touch.

Kurt stood, shaking, for what felt like an hour, before he heard footsteps coming up behind him.

“There you are!” Sebastian said enthusiastically, walking past Kurt to stand by the bed. Bending down to adjust the already perfect sheets. “Do you like the new bed? I got it for you.”

Kurt simply nodded, his heart beating out of his throat. Sebastian wasn’t meeting his eye.

“Now you can have all the space and blanket you like without even touching me.” Sebastian breezed past him again, back in the hallway, without a glance back, no more than a finger brushing an elbow. Kurt collapsed inward, falling onto the sheets, feeling invisible among the huge expanse of bed around him.

**Exhibit D**

Sebastian groaned as he slowly lowered himself onto the too soft mattress, weak knees creaking beneath him. Beside him, Kurt was primly posed, mostly under the sheets, small glasses resting on the tips of his nose, white hair falling over his forehead. Simultaneously unguarded and icy, as Sebastian often found him in the evenings. Soft skin, hard edges.

Kurt was increasingly sick this year. Sebastian wasn’t free of ailments either, but found himself increasingly caring for Kurt, after falls caused by his independent spirit, after diagnoses that began to pile, after medications forgotten and added. Kurt would look at Sebastian alternately with adoration and with repose. No matter how many wrinkles formed (not many for his age of course), how white his eyebrows turned, or how deep the purple under his eyes became, every time Kurt looked at him Sebastian could clearly see the bright eyed, smooth skinned, sassy 18 year old he had fallen in love with.

He recognised both the hate and the love well, having them fired at him in almost equal measure over 6 decades. That’s not to say he ever got used to either of them though. The darkness and fire of hate in Kurt’s eyes never failed to make him feel small, young, sitting in a coffee shop in Ohio with tears in his eyes over and over again. But the warm, golden love unbalanced him just as much, even now. Whenever he was on the receiving end of that magical look his gravity shifted, his stomach knotted, his heart grew three sizes.

Sebastian manoeuvred himself under the thick blankets that shielded them from the New York winter. It was a particularly bad one this year, or maybe his bones were just losing their heat from the inside, his thin skin forgetting how to keep him warm. This apartment, this bed, which had kept them warm for so many seasons, felt colder by the day.

With another loud sigh, Sebastian reached for his own silver rimmed eye-glasses, sitting atop an outdated Time magazine on the table beside him, but by the time he turned back to settle against his husband and read, Kurt had dropped his own magazine, tucked his glasses away, and settled himself deeper into the blankets warm embrace.

Without a glance in Sebastian's direction, Kurt reached for the lamp switch and plunged them into sudden darkness.  
Sebastian could hear the heavy sniff of tears stuck in Kurt's throat, a stuttering breath.  
“Are you in pain?” he asked quietly into the darkness, expecting no reply, and getting exactly that.

**Exhibit E**

This was not the way it was supposed to go. Sebastian’s heart monitor was beating too slowly. Kurt couldn’t walk. They were separated now, not only by years of silence, but by bed rails, by tubes, by wheelchairs.

Kurt had picked out a plot for them both. A white marble headstone, his last big extravagance. Sebastian had smiled through his exhaustion when he had seen. He expected nothing less.  
A willow casket, big enough for two.

Sebastian turned his head weakly and slotted his leathery hand into Kurt's.

“Did you love me?”

“More than anything under the sun, my dear.”

“Then what was the matter?”

“I would have told you, if you’d only asked me.”


End file.
